“I don’t think we should ever accept that in golf. I think golf should be held to a higher standard than what was seen out there this week.”
That’s what a visibly frustrated Rory McIlroy said in a press conference on Sunday evening following Europe’s win at the 2025 Ryder Cup in Bethpage. The topic in question wasn’t concerning the Northern Irish champion’s anticipated singles match nor Europe’s triumph on American soil; it was about his wife.
Erica Stoll, McIlroy’s wife of eight years, was the victim of unsavory fan behavior over the Ryder Cup weekend. Beer was thrown at her, and crowds were chanting the name of a woman McIlroy was rumored to have dated while the couple were briefly split. As public figures, athletes are accustomed to rowdy fans. (The five-time major winner himself endured chants of “F— you, Rory” through his first tee.) But what happens when their partners become targets of the pandemonium?
The spotlight on WAGs — the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes — has rarely burned brighter. Last month, model Brooks Nader was the talk of the U.S. Open for allegedly dating both Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. In August, Georgina Rodriguez, the longtime girlfriend of Christiano Ronaldo and mother to his five children, made headlines with her monstrosity of an engagement ring (an estimated 35-carat, no less). There’s TikToker Alix Earle with Houston wide receiver Braxton Berrios, influencer Alexandra Saint Mleux with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. And of course, the NFL’s favorite Easter egg, Taylor Swift.
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During her podcast debut, she proved she’s fallen in love with football — and doesn’t care about the scrutinyWhile the WAGs of decades past were mostly tabloid fixtures (Posh and Beck, anyone?), today they are woven into the fabric of sports marketing, thanks in part to a string of Netflix shows like Drive to Survive and Full Swing fueling fascination with athletes’ off-field lives. WAGs have evolved to become celebrities in their own right, sitting front row at fashion week, commanding dedicated fanbases and seeing their dating histories dissected for public consumption.
To be a WAG in 2025 is to become the most obvious bridge between the gossip economy and sports culture. They’re easy fodder for cheap conspiracies like gold-digging allegations and cheating rumors even when they’re entirely baseless. When gossip spills offline, it curdles into hostility: Taylor Swift heckled by stadium-sized crowds, Gisele Bündchen blamed for Tom Brady’s losses, beer being shucked at Erica Stoll for… existing.
Ultimately, WAGs are treated as accessories even when these women have careers and identities of their own. In the male-dominated world of professional sports, women are cast into rigid archetypes where the supportive and watchful wife is the ideal, a role steeped in conservative notions of partnership. Any deviation invites suspicion: If a WAG were to accept brand deals, she’s labeled as opportunistic; if she embraces her role, she’s branded as a distraction. Here, women are only elevated as glamorous extensions of their partners or dragged down as collateral in the endless theater of masculine rivalry. It’s a double bind that ensures that they can never really win the game.
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